

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../book.css" charset="ISO-8859-1" type="text/css">		
<title>Compare With menu</title>
</head>

<body>

<h1>Compare With menu</h1>

<p>The compare menu normally allows you to compare with local history (Eclipse's own version of saved files during a session),
or to compare two selected resources.
<p>However, once a project is connected to a repository, a few new entries are present in the Compare menu:</p>
<ul>
	<li><b>Compare With &gt; Base Revision</b> - this will compare the selected resource with the "pristine" version hidden away in the
	project's working copy. This happens without contacting the repository.</li>
	<li><b>Compare With &gt; Latest From Repository</b> - this will compare the selected resource with the latest version
	    of this resource at the same location in the repository. This requires a lookup to see what the latest version is.
	</li>	
	<li><b>Compare With &gt; Revision...</b> - this will bring up a dialog showing the change history for the file.  You can then easily
	compare the file against any previous revision from the repository.
	</li>	
	<li><b>Compare With &gt; Branch/Tag...</b> - This option allows you to compare your working copy with another URL from the
	repository, presumably a different branch/tag of the same project.  You are given the option of viewing the output in the
	Eclipse graphical compare engine, or using the SVN command to produce a unified diff.  The latter operation generally
	runs a lot faster and is able to factor out differences in keywords.  Of course the graphical compare is a nicer way to view
	the differences.
	</li>	
</ul>
<p>These comparisons are very useful for reviewing the contents of you changes before you commit them.

</body>
</html>
